I woke up this morning to see the above graphic as the lead on News.com.au. According to The Australian, “young adults” are switching off and embracing things like vinyl records. The report quotes a study by Lifelounge, a Melbourne based “youth” marketing agency.

Now admittedly the coverage by The Australian is over the top compared to the actual findings, with the article starting with “NEXT thing you know, all the young men will be using Brylcreem, the girls will be in bobby sox and everyone will be learning to jitterbug” when the study actually found that “Australia’s 16-30 year olds are nostalgic for times pre-GFC and climate change when life was perceived as more innocent and uncomplicated.” The GFC started….last year.

The headline of “switching off” is based on the study finding that those surveyed are spending 30 minutes less each week “surfing the internet”… but it’s hardly switching off when you look at the usage numbers: down 30 minutes a week to 8.6 hours (not including chat room and online forums…which are counted separately at 2.5 hours and 1.5 hours each..so total online is 12.6) with the internet still leading TV, PayTV and newspapers (4.4,1.5, 1.9).

But looking past the hyped (and not unexpected take) by The Australian is some rather interesting results.

I’ll go through these point by point.

Starting reference point:

About Urban Market Research: UMR is Australia’s pre-eminent annual trend report into the attitudes and behaviours of the country’s leading young adults (aged 16-30). It contains quantitative (1,662 participants) and qualitative (25 participants) data based on the five lifestyle pillars of youth culture: music, entertainment, fashion, sport and travel, and the key three influences: communication, finance, and sex, health and wellbeing. The research is weighted against ABS statistics and was conducted online between late January and March this year.

Findings:

With 50.2% of young adults living in suburbia with their parents

Really? A survey of those 16-30 found half live with their parents. Lets presume that everyone 16-20 does (16-18 would, then you get the decline from 100%) and we get to 29%. You’d presume that nearly everyone above 25 wouldn’t live with their parents..which leaves 21-24 year olds. 21 is notable because its roughly the age people would finish a three year degree and enter the workforce…presuming they went to Uni. The stat seems high.

The research indicates the GFC has hit the youth market’s collective hip pocket, with total spend across key lifestyle ‘pillars’, music, entertainment, travel, fashion and sport, down more than $5 billion, from $47.5 billion last year to $42.4 billion. The biggest fall was in entertainment, down $7.3 billion to $19.4 billion, while travel spend increased $4.4 billion to $9.3 billion.

I know you can use survey data to come up with these figures, but wouldn’t retail/ commercial data be the better source? Last lot of stats I’ve seen show that GDP is flat and although retail sales have been a bit up and down I don’t recall any massive drops either. Also note that the survey was done in Jan-March. The unemployment rate has only really started to rise in the last few months: so how did it hurt spending so much in January??

The research reveals looking after yourself is in, getting trashed is out. Young adults are taking up jogging, hosting dinner parties and watching home entertainment over going out. They’re expressing themselves through creative pursuits as a source of ‘urban capital’ (ie: what gives them kudos and status among their peers) over their desire to consume.

As much as I believe that the media (and by extension politicians) overplays the so-called drinking issue this country has, likewise there would appear to be an increase in binge drinking as opposed to a significant drop. Let me say as a 33 year old that if I walk into a pub or club on a Friday night I’d likely be one of the oldest people in the room.

“Due to their living circumstances most young adults are yet to feel the direct effect of the global financial crisis, however economic woes and climate change has led them to re-assess what’s important – saving the planet or destroying it through unfettered consumerism,”

Hang on…. I thought the GFC was driving them to spend less..indeed the study already said so, so which is it?

“As digital natives, the youth market has grown up online but are increasingly seeking to balance their online world with offline contact,” Appel said. “They’re starting to question the authenticity of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. They want technology to assist – rather than dominate – the way they communicate.”

Given Twitter only really took off in a huge way THIS YEAR, how can they reassess something most of them only started using…oh wait, we haven’t got to the sampling issue yet.

(from the Oz article) “Parents’ vinyl records are suddenly interesting and vintage clothes are de rigueur.”

Vinyl? let me check the latest iPod/ iPhone sales figures in Australia…mmm

(from the Oz article, presumably matched by Lifelounge)

Melbourne clothing designer Clea Garrick, 27, said she and her friends had tended to step out of the fast lane over the past year, and were instead enjoying some of the simpler pleasures.

“We’ve definitely had more dinners at our house than we normally would, including a fondue party, would you believe it?” said Ms Garrick, who is married with no children. She agreed there was now a greater emphasis among her peers for human contact rather than online connections than a year ago. “Facebook, for sure, we’ve dropped our usage,” she said. “It’s just a time-commitment issue: how do you want to be spending your time?”

So what they’re describing is maturity…and that’s somehow a trend or something interesting? As “young adults” get older, they slow down and do things like (shock horror) host dinner parties.

The sampling issue

The first thing I went hunting for when I read the story in The Australian is the sampling data; my immediate hunch was that the sample wasn’t representative because it sounds a lot like they surveyed trendy inner-city types, or what Lifelounge describes in its own words the “country’s leading young adults.”

The survey consisted of “quantitative (1,662 participants) and qualitative (25 participants) data…and was conducted online.” They do however say that “The research is weighted against ABS statistics.”

By qualitative (25) you can presume that they actively surveyed people, that is they actually went out and found them. But the Quantitative (1,662) is the interesting one because there’s no details on the form of the poll in the press release, particularly were the participants approached, was it an open poll etc. Their website notes though that the data is gathered “through the development of research and communications channels.”

However Dr Google provided the answer here in about 1 second: the 1,662 Quantitive number consists entirely of readers of the Lifelounge website. Indeed, every year they give away freebies to get people to participate: here’s the post for this years poll. That posts links to the poll itself which you can still do today here.

So just to be clear again: the results are actually representative of readers of the Lifelounge website, which claims to be Australia’s most popular “youth” site with 400,000 uniques a month. So lets take a quick look at what sort of site Lifelounge is

Is that Samantha Fox I see? sure does look like it…how very nostalgic. Oh, and the other word I’d use for Lifelounge (they also do a magazine) is….wait for it….trendy.

I don’t know a lot about Lifelounge outside of their tie-up publishing The Vine with Fairfax and given the numbers I’ve seen for that site, credit where due because they’re doing a great job. However presenting a survey of visitors to your site as being representative of all youth takes a special type of gumption.

Interestingly despite the Fairfax business relationship, as I write this neither The Age or SMH have published the survey results… maybe unlike that pillar of quality journalism News Ltd they understand the nature of surveys and statistics 🙂

News.com.au: Malcolm Turnbull’s political career has been smashed in just one week, and senior Liberals believe there could be moves within the party to remove him as Opposition Leader within days or weeks.

It takes an awful lot of specialness to completely fuck up Utegate, and yet Malcolm Turnbull has. Instead of Rudd and Co being on the ropes, it looks like Turnbull is history now. The alternatives to Turnbull aren’t clear, but Hockey looks like he’s the short price favorite.

Welcome to the thousand year Rudd Reich.

It’s actually a little sad to see Turnbull go. His complete cock-up of Utegate aside, here’s a man who could have made a great Prime Minister. I was never a fan in the past (particularly when he headed ARM) but there’s no doubt that he understands money and unlike the current mob may have been able to balance the national books.

Hockey on the other hand…. well, I guess the positive there in a political sense is that he’s a lot like Rudd so he’ll be a small target, but that’s not enough to win elections.

I might have voted for Turnbull at the next election, but I won’t be voting for Hockey, but I can also remember him well from his younger days, and he’s representative of what was, and still is wrong with the Liberal Party.

With no effective opposition going into the next election, how the hell do we stop internet censorship now?

Rudd hit by car scandal: SMH

With PM Kevin Rudd now in more than a little bit of trouble, the question comes down to will heads roll over the matter?

What I still find amusing is Rudd’s insistence that he doesn’t do favors for donors, when there would hardly been an MP or Senator past or present that hasn’t. Large donors to candidates rarely give out of the goodness of their hearts alone, but as a way to gain access, and on occasion for the odd favor or two. It’s the way the system has always worked and having worked in various capacities with Federal and State members, I’ve seen it first hand.

Of course there’s a big difference between making a representation on behalf of a donor who is also a constituent, and having the Prime Ministers Office, and Treasury Department intervene….that takes it to a whole new level.

However I’d argue that the issue isn’t so much that it happened, but Rudd denied it in Parliament and in the public arena. The validity of the email aside, it’s known fact that Treasury helped Rudd’s mate, how they got to that point may only be a matter of semantics.

But what next, because there’s no precedent that I can recall like this given it is more than just a case of misleading Parliament.

If it is just a case of misleading Parliament, Rudd gets a slap on the hand, but he all but loses the public’s trust.

If it’s more, could he be forced to resign?

I’m betting unlikely, but that’s without knowing if any laws were breached in terms of the lobbying to begin with. Maybe an abuse of office…. hard to say.

On the other side, Turnbull is playing high stakes poker and he may not win yet. But if Rudd is proven to have lied, the next election becomes a whole lot more interesting .

Update: of course Rudd has the numbers in the Rep, but this is isntereting (via Oz Politics)

Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 which has limited and clarified the privilege and contempt powers of the Federal Parliament. Each House may impose penalties for contempt limited to imprisonment not exceeding six months for a person, or a fine not exceeding $5,000, or not exceeding $25,000 in the case of a corporation. It has also made the imposition of penalties subject to judicial review. This Act also prevents members of parliament from being expelled.

How Gen-Xers became has-beens

Let me start by saying I’m not having a go at News.com.au here, but the “job seeker” Michael Gowers who wrote the article.

Lets look beyond the intellectual snobbery this guy offers first, because there’s two really weird quotes in the article (well, there’s more, but these one stands out.)

Along with many of my friends, I never paid much mind to the idea that one day I might be unemployed. For my generation, who are used to a permanently strong economy, it was just never going to happen.

For myself and the rest of the Generation Xers who grew up in a time where work was plentiful, this experience is one that crushes one’s sense of self-worth and leads to an every day battle to maintain hope and keep up the momentum of searching for work.

Now I’m a member of Gen X, and I fit the definition of a young Gen Xer as well because I was born towards the end of the accepted time frame for Gen X (depending on the source, Gen X is anywhere from 1965 through to 1980, although some put the end date earlier at 1975, the year I was born).

Here’s the thing: I didn’t grow up in a time where work was always plentiful. Indeed, when I finished high school in 1993, it was so hard to get a job that entry marks into Universities hit record highs. But maybe my memory is faulty, so lets get some figures.

According to the ABS, unemployment in Australia in August 1993 was 10.7%, but significantly higher again in states like Victoria and Tasmania. It peaked that year at 10.9% after several years above 10%. Although things did turn, by 1997 the figure was only down to 8.7%. Notable is that “youth unemployment” has always been significantly higher than the general rate.

The quotes from Michael Gowers are bullshit. We’ve had a good run from maybe the turn of the century, but the 90’s weren’t a cake walk. What I can’t work out is why use the lines: they aren’t lines that make him a sympathetic character, but an entitled one. As some of the comments note, boo-ho.

Here’s another line that made me laugh:

That is my reality in 2009 now that I am a fulltime unemployed professional jobseeker.

note the “professional jobseeker” part. That’s not meant to imply that he’s a professional at seeking jobs, but he’s looking for a professional job. And here in lies the problem, he’s a job snob.

Don’t get me wrong. Australia has a fantastic system that provides benefits and assistance to those in need. It is not, however, designed to cope with highly qualified individuals who have found themselves out of work

So what he means is that he’s somehow better than others who are unemployed but don’t have three degrees? give me a break.

Everyday I continue with my full-time job of looking for a job, a process that just keeps reminding me of our economic conditions. I am unable to get some jobs because I am now over-qualified and employers feel that I’d simply be taking a job just to have one and would leave as soon as the market picks up.

So how is it that given 5-10 minutes I could find this guy work in a supermarket stacking shelves or at a shop delivering pizzas then, because the local Woolworths still has a sign out saying they are looking for people…oh, and the unemployment rate today is 5.7%.

It does suck to have to go back to doing base work when you’ve had high ranking positions, but society doesn’t owe you a living. As recently as 3 years ago I worked part time in a bottle shop to help pay the bills despite my whoopdy-do degree, and previous roles in marketing and management, some somewhat senior, because that’s what I had to do (that, and b5media wasn’t making money at the time.)

Michael Gowers: get off your fat, lazy, entitled arse and go and take any job you can get.

The absurdity surrounding Indian students being attacked in Australia…well Melbourne specifically (despite what the Indian press claims) continues on.

As I’ve said before, and I’ll say again: any assault is bad. That some of the assaults included racial abuse is a given, and are beyond apology. But likewise the context is primarily one of crimes of opportunity, not race.

Despite the Victorian Government, and the Australian Government bending over backwards to appease India, there are now boycotts and more….

Now here’s your raw stats

Now I know Australia vs India per head of pop doesn’t work, but it’s important to note that assaults in India have a bias towards main cities; still maybe not quite close stats wise, but hardly numbers you can ignore.

Did I fail to mention that foreigners have a far higher stat rate for assault in India?

Must be racism, surely, after all ,that’s what’ happening here…not.

My son goes to a school where maybe half the kids can count heritage from the subcontinent. I don’t make the difference because they don’t, and let’s be clear: if there really was a race problem in Melbourne, the people allegedly making the attacks wouldn’t be able tell the difference from an Indian, a Sri Lankan, or a Pakastani.

BTW: my son has as his second language Sanskrit. I wonder how many kids in India learn the language of their ancestors.

I hate to say this, and I certainly don’t say this to the first, second and third generations here in Melbourne who don’t have an issue, and who….for lack of a better term, have blended with us all (and in that I mean it both ways). But seriously: if you’re an Indian student who seriously believes you’re not welcomed here: fuck off. Everyone is welcome in Australia, far more I should add than everyone is in India, particularly when it comes to caste. I wrote a post about American hypocrisy today; it applies to India as well: link.

The growing controversy over the bashing of Indian students in Melbourne has taken on nearly farcical levels of stupidity.

The allegations, particularly from the Indian press is that Indian students in Melbourne are being targeted on racial grounds, in what is being referred to as “curry bashing.”

That there has been attacks in which racial slurs were used is factual. That there is a wave of violence against Indian students isn’t.

It’s hard to get solid numbers, and local Indian representatives aren’t helping. On ABC radio last week, the head of the Indian Students Association claimed that there had been 60-70 incidents. Within that number, he included suicides that he blamed on fear of being attacked. Whether than number is accurate or not, I don’t know.

What I do know is that according to Victoria Police, there were 31,284 assaults recorded in Victoria in 2007/2008. Some of these so-called “curry bashing” incidents included robbery, of which there were 3,332 incidents in 2007/2008 for the entire state.

Numbers of the total numbers of Indian students in Melbourne are hard to pin down, but have been suggested to be around 30,000. This might be on top, or including the 50,000 odd people who said they were born in India in the 2006 census and the 30,000 from Sri Lanka (while I know there is a difference, your average racist thug at night couldn’t tell the difference). What we can add to that is the first and second generations of people born in Melbourne that have Indian or Sri Lankan heritage; I don’t have a number, but you’d probably double or triple the not-born here number.

So out of maybe 150,000 to 200,000 people of Indian or Sri Lankan heritage in Melbourne, 60-70 have been subject to assault, robbery, or death.

Remember, the incidents of assault in the general population is 563.9 incidents per 100,000 people. Given the population of people with heritage in India or Sri Lanka, there should have been roughly 1000 assaults….but there’s been maybe 60-70, and possibly less.

I’m don’t want to belittle any crime big or small, because ultimately they are all wrong and they shouldn’t happen. But perspective based on numbers vs what is now being called a trend that is threatening international relations between Australia and India? Give me a break.

The xenophobia in India is so out of control that you read shit like this article. It claims that a student who was found to have committed suicide was murdered by an Australian taxi driver. What this article fails to mention (and the others like it) is that if he was murdered by a taxi driver, and there is NO EVIDENCE to suggest that he was, that there’s a very strong chance the taxi driver WOULD HAVE BEEN INDIAN AS WELL. I don’t have numbers, but a rough guess would be at least 50% of taxi drivers in Melbourne are Indian from experience, if not higher. Those that aren’t Indian are often visitors or from other parts of the world, in particular Eastern Europe. But why let that get in the way of a good beat up.

I was going to be more scathing about the way the Indian press are dealing with story, but then it dawned on me that I’ve seen stories like this before.

In Australia.

Every time some idiot Australian tourist gets pinged for drugs or theft overseas, the media and general population fall into an orgy of xenophobia, one of cultural elitism that borders on outright racism. That the Indian media is now doing the same to us…well, it gives pause for thought, doesn’t it.